Industry leading brands are making big decisions and change to their go-to-market strategies in an effort to outshine the competition as our economy recovers.
Just shy of 5 months into the pandemic and there is no doubt the way companies do business has changed. The lack of business travel, trade shows, face-to-face meetings and sales pitches has businesses evaluating budgets and staffing within their organizations.
Large corporations including CocaCola and LinkedIn announced shocking changes as a result of the pandemic. CocaCola CEO James Quincey stated on an investor call on July 21, 2020 that: “We need to do a better job of nurturing and growing smaller and more enduring propositions and exiting zombie brands, not just zombie SKUs”. LinkedIn employees flooded LinkedIn feeds on July 22, 2020 with news that the company was restructuring and an entire division would be eliminated, leaving thousands of employees worldwide without jobs in the next 30 days.
All businesses small, medium and large are seeking to cut back and be more frugal due to lack of sales during the pandemic. Many small businesses are looking at the end of their PPP loans and further evaluating how they can stay afloat as revenues have not yet returned to normal. As a business leader, what should you be evaluating within your operations to ensure steady regrowth?
Companies need to take a good sit down look at their operations, determining if the goods and services they sell are relevant as the economy changes.
The overall key to pushing through the pandemic is evaluating go-to-market strategies and priorities. Ensuring that everything is kept in balance. Button up your marketing plan, focusing on your target customer list and how you can reach and stay relevant to them. Define highly realistic sales forecasts, keeping in mind that your customer might also be a business and therefore the sales cycle might be longer than normal. Finally, create a reasonable budget that allows for steady regrowth...consistently striving to emerge stronger and faster!